In the few years after Henry VIII came to be crowned the young monarch spent considerable time and spared no expense in entertaining himself and his Queen with “disguisings,” “revels” and masqued balls. On Twelfth Night, 1511, before the banquet in the Hall at Richmond, so records the contemporary chronicler, Edward Hall, there “was a pageant devised like a mountain, glistering by night as though it had been all of gold and set with stones; on the top of which mountain was a tree of gold, the branches and boughs frysed with gold, spreading on every side over the mountain with roses and pomegranates; the which mountain was with (de) vices brought up towards the King, and out of the same came a lady apparelled in cloth of gold, and the children of honour, called the henchmen, which were freshly disguised and danced a Morris before the King, and that done re-entered the mountain: and then was the wassail brought in and so brake up Christmas.” The next year the King himself took part in a similar pageant; and in the next, _i.e._ in 1513, so Hall tells us, “the King with eleven others were disguised after the manner of Italy, called a Mask, a _thing not seen before in England_. They were apparelled in garments long and broad, wrought with gold, with visors and caps of gold; and after the banquet these masquers came in with six gentlemen disguised in silk, bearing staff-torches, and desired the ladies to dance.” A little later came the introduction of singing, and dialogue as well as dancing, some allegorical story forming the basis of the masque. In Beaujoyeux’s “ballet” of 1582, we have all this. Up to then in England the masque made no great advance beyond those of Henry VIII’s early years. In Beaujoyeux’s “ballet,” however, we have all that _had_ been, and more. We have dancing, singing, dialogue, elaborate scenic effect, all in illustration of a mythic and allegorical story; and achieving a definiteness and grandeur of form hitherto unequalled, as well as publicity which made it famous throughout Europe. In some ways it was as much masque as “ballet,” and as much opera as masque. Actually it did stimulate the development of the Masque in England; and Opera in France. At the English Courts of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, the masque developed in the direction of scenic elaboration and splendour (with _music_) that made up for its literary shortcomings, at least in its earlier period. At the French Courts of Henry IV and Louis XIII, what were known as Opera-ballets (later to be separated as opera and ballet) developed a musical richness (_with_ scenic effect) that made up for similar literary shortcomings. Yet again came another form in the _Comedie Ballet_ of Molière. With the accession of James I of England came the real efflorescence of the English masque, which under the hands of Ben Jonson was to become a fairly balanced harmony of the three arts--the poet’s, the musician’s, and the painter-designer’s.